


Moda Nova

by AraSigyrn



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Makeover gone wrong, Misunderstandings, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:55:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28640352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraSigyrn/pseuds/AraSigyrn
Summary: For this Kinkmeme prompt"Nile comments (jokingly, lovingly) how she doesn’t get how a Hot Fashion Icon Joe can stand to be around Fashion Trashfire like Nicky. This is all friendly ribbing and they all laugh about it until someone proposes a makeover cue montage.Except the more Nicky thinks about it the more he thinks she’s... right? He’s never paid attention to what he’s wearing and what if Joe just doesn’t think he’s putting effort into his looks? He’s not putting effort for into looking pretty for Joe, ergo, is taking them and their relationship for granted? "
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 33
Kudos: 344





	Moda Nova

The days after Merrick are a confusion of emotions and frantic scrambling to find a place where they can feel safe. Then there is Booker and what must be done with him and right after that, it feels like there is Copley and his unsettling fervour. Nicky has spent too much of his long life around fanatics to be comfortable with Copley's zealous manner. He keeps his silence, lets Andy dictate how things will go for all their sakes and does not reach for Joe only because he keeps his hands curled in the ragged edges of his sleeves.

They go to Spain, a small cottage almost forgotten amid the dry hills near Alicante where tourists and foreigners flock and no-one looks twice at their ragged little family. They spend nearly two full weeks just recovering, sleeping, eating and doing little chores to distract themselves. Nicky spends the time cooking or silently shadowing Joe around the garden as his love sketches the flowers or the clouds. Andy focuses on Nile, helping her to adapt to her new life and bringing her into their family.

It is stilted at first. There is a silent void where Booker should be and the gaping injury that is Quynh's absence still bleeds in all of their minds. The bedrock of their lives is fractured and they are all stumbling to find their balance.

Nile is a joy, still fresh enough to find wonder in the things that have long since become routine to the rest of them. She finds her footing quickly, bantering with Andy, teasing Joe and asking Nicky all the questions. Nicky loves her already but oh, he would love her for banishing the pain in his love's eyes alone. He asks his own questions, learns her favourite foods and comforts and endeavours to make her as happy as he can. Their gift comes with a heavy price.

He does not precisely remember when the teasing starts. It must be after they venture into the city with its glaring lights and crowded streets. Was it at the café with the strange opening hours? A bar? Maybe the Grecian restaurant that has replaced the coffee house that they used to linger in? 

Joe is in his element which says little; Joe loves people and his charm wins him friends wherever he goes. Nile is still young enough that she seeks out other people and they make a striking pair. Andy sometimes accompanies them, sometimes not but Nicky is not ready to be without Joe so he follows dutifully. The bars are loud and full of people living as loudly and intrusively as possible. The clubs that stay open into the night are deafeningly loud. Nicky likes to dance but the dancefloors are a mass of seething bodies that spark flashes of battles long past every time he blinks.

Nile drinks like a mortal still and it takes only a few weeks until she trusts them enough to get drunk. Joe drinks with her and Nicky, who still feels brittle and unsure, keeps them company and gets them safely home. He fetches bottles of sweet spirits for Andy, makes espresso and sits with her in the radiant mornings while the others sleep. Andy has found bedmates a-plenty in the time that they are out. She does not discuss it and Nicky does not ask. He is happy; time with his family and peace to recover from Booker's betrayal and the lab.

It is definitely in the bar that he first notices. Nile loose and slightly giddy with the drink, leaning on the table as Joe winds through the crowd with the next round of drinks in his hands. Nicky is watching Joe. Nearly a thousand years on and Nicky is mesmerized by him. Joe is dressed nicely, the modern fashion for tight clothing looks good on him. 

"So," Nile says, slurring the sibilant only slightly, "I don't get it, man."

"Get what?" Joe asks as he sets the drinks down.

"I thought Nicky was just old-fashioned," she says and Nicky looks over at the sound of his name. She looks sincerely confused. "But you!"

"Me," Joe agrees and she swats his arm.

"You're all fashionable and hot," she waves her hands, "and Nicky's, like, not? Like he doesn't even dress like a grandpa! He dresses like...like he raided a second-hand store on the cheap!"

Nicky looks down at his long sleeves, the hems ratty and the seams sagging a little. It is clean and not faded. A little warm for the climate but Nicky prefers to be warm. He looks up again when Joe laughs, the deep belly laugh that makes Nicky smile just to hear.

"I despair," Joe says, still smiling and bright-eyed.

Nicky sits up a little straighter, but Joe does not seem distressed.

"I just don't get it," Nile shakes her head and Joe reaches out to pat her on the shoulder.

"You will learn to suffer it," he says and the song changes. "Come dance with me."

They trip onto the dance floor, leaving Nicky confused and uncertain behind them. He plucks at the sleeves of his shirt, the cotton soft as summer air and thinks of Joe's face in that torture chamber, despair and suffering. 

The conversation continues in bursts over the following weeks. Nicky feels like he's fighting just to keep up. He does their washing with extra care, makes sure nothing is in the many pockets of his pants and hangs the clothes to dry near the wild roses. Nile still shakes her head every evening when Nicky comes down the stairs so they can leave. Nothing in his wardrobe pleases her. Joe laughs a lot and they share commiserating looks. It is like Booker and Joe were before but Nicky feels it more keenly. Joe and Booker had argued about sport but there had always been a space for Nicky if he wanted to take it. He usually did not but it had meant something to know that he would be welcome no matter what.

He does not feel welcome in this joke. It is not a new feeling as such but it is a new feeling to have about his family. 

Nicky goes quiet. He hears every word but none of his attempts to join in come out right so he stops trying. Nile and Joe talk about many things but Nicky finds himself waiting for them to turn on him.

It is a warm, sunny morning when Nile joins him and Andy for breakfast with a determined expression. Nicky had stayed in bed until he feared his restless energy would wake Joe. Then he'd come out to bake until the sun rose enough to rouse the others. Andy looks amused, sipping at her coffee with the world-weary tolerance of the eldest. Nile says some lovely things about Nicky's fresh-baked pastries and drinks three coffees before she turns to him.

"So, you don't have plans today, right?"

"I, uh, no?" Nicky had some vague ideas of weeding the garden, perhaps a trip to swim in the sea but nothing that cannot wait.

"Excellent!" Nile catches him by the wrist. "We're going shopping!"

"We are?" Nicky says stupidly. Andy hides her smile with her cup.

"It's a public service," Nile assures Andy before she turns those earnest eyes on Nicky. "You need some up-to-date duds."

"If you say so," Nicky says doubtfully but Nile smiles at him, face clear of grief for her old life and really, how can he say no?

"We'll be back later!" Nile shouts over her shoulder, taking the keys for the car and one of the less-used credit cards and towing him out the door behind her. Nicky allows it, trying to ignore the unease he feels. 

It turns out that by 'shopping', Nile means 'makeover' which Nicky understands to mean changing his entire wardrobe.

"You're so hot," Nile tells him sincerely. "Like, you're like my brother and I don't think of you that way, but, you know, I have eyes!"

"Grazie, Nile," Nicky says although it doesn't sound like a compliment to him.

"I used to do it with my squad," Nile says as they struggle to find parking and Nicky squeezes her hand. He remembers the men who marched on Jerusalem with him. Many monsters and criminals but good men too. He knows what is to lose those you went to war with. He has needed new clothes, he tells himself.

Five hours later, Nicky wants to scream until his lungs implode and kill everyone in this shopping centre with fire. 

Including himself. 

Especially himself. 

The pain of immolation is nothing to this skin-crawling sense of exposure. Nile has dragged him through every shop that sells men's clothing, through a pharmacy and a shop that was so filled with perfume that he couldn't breathe and, as soon as she saw the holes in his ears, into a jeweler's. His hair is stiff and spiked with a gel that feels like sticky lube on his fingers. The clothes Nile buys for him are tight and cling to him when he breathes.

The lights are too bright, the dressing rooms too small with mirrors everywhere so Nicky cannot help but see himself. Worse still are the attendants. They look at him differently in the clothes that Nile chooses. One flamboyant young man writes his number on the receipt with a saucy wink that makes Nicky cringe away from him. Nile sees this a great compliment. Nicky sees it as a presumption.

"Told you you were hot," Nile tells him smugly and Nicky ducks his head.

He does not see what is laudable in this. He has never wanted to inspire lust in anyone but Joe. Joe has never needed him to be dressed in tight clothes or wearing bright jewellery to want him. He has truly never felt real desire for any other, not in all their years, and he mistrusts the way desire makes men act. Having greedy eyes on his every move makes him think of the van, of Merrick and the man, Keane, and his gun. He wants to be home. He wants his soft long sleeves and the looser pants with pockets that fit more than a credit card. He wants Joe and peace and privacy.

But Nile is vibrant with joy. How can he begrudge her this small triumph?

He follows her through the list of additional shopping, tries to ignore the way that hungry eyes follow them both. A gaggle of girls follows him and Nicky has to work surprisingly hard to keep them from taking a picture of his face. They seem satisfied with the pictures they take of his rear and Nicky feels the back of his neck burn. They giggle to themselves and he feels a queasy sense of shame.

They go home hours after Nicky wants to leave and he nearly weeps with relief. He longs for his own clothes, the peace of their little house with only his family's voices to disturb the natural sounds.

But Joe is there to meet them and his eyes light up when he sees Nicky dressed as Nile wanted.

"See what a handsome man has been hiding under those clothes," Joe crows to Andy who looks at Nicky and rolls her yes.

Hiding under...? Nicky looks down at himself. His fingers twitch but the short sleeves cling to his biceps. He feels them every time he moves his arms. He does not feel handsome. He feels naked. When they were young, travelling among Yusuf's people, Nicky had been as remarkable as a black swan amid a flock of white swans and every eye had searched him out.

"We must go out!" Joe tells Nile. "I must show off my handsome husband."

Show him off? Nicky looks down at his hands. Joe has never wanted to show him off before. He had...he presumed that it was another expression of Joe's possessive nature. Jealousy is laughable between them but Joe likes to keep Nicky to himself. At least, Nicky had thought that was why Joe prefered to spend their shared time in private.

Nicky feels a little sick but Joe is already running up the stairs to change.

They are back in the car almost before he blinks, Nile and Joe discussing his outfit and his physical form in terms that make Nicky long to disappear. The club is loud, the air stinks of mass-produced deodorants and cheap spirits and so full of people that Nicky thinks of the galleys that used to navigate the Mediterranian. He dances with Joe, twice with Nile and every time, he has to deal with strangers crowding up against him and touching him. 

"Too irresistible," Joe shouts in his ear, hands settling on Nicky's hips. 

Nicky tries to smile. Too irresistible? A clammy hand brushes the small of his back and he twitches away. How does he stop being irresistable? 

He doesn't get an answer that night and when they finally go home, Nicky spends so long in the shower that Joe is asleep when he emerges. Nicky does not want to wake him. Joe needs to sleep. It has been a long month. Still, he wants to ask if Joe really thinks Nicky was inviting the touch of others. Was it really so terrible to have Nicky with him at the bars in his old clothes? A month ago, two, Nicky would have known the answer was no but two months ago, Nicky had a sister who would never die and a brother who loved him and made ridiculous bets so they could share a smile.

Nicky rubs the fabric of the shirt between his fingers. It snags on the calluses of a lifetime's worth of sword training and rasps against his skin. He has worn worse, he tells himself. Hairshirts for Lent were more painful. He skims his fingers along the line of Joe's arm. Joe's skin is soft and warm. His love stirs but only momentarily.

Nicky sighs. There is no limit to the things he will do for this man. He has long since made his peace with that fact. If dressing Nicky in these clothes is what it takes to make Joe want him? To make Joe smile like the noon sun emerging from clouds. It is not much of a sacrifice. He folds the shirt and sets it aside for the morning. Joe curls into him as he lies down and Nicky presses a kiss against the arm that curls possessively around his chest. Joe's beard tickles against the back of his neck as his love breathes against it.

It will be alright, Nicky tells himself. It will not be for long. They will grow bored soon enough.

They do not grow bored. It is not all right.

Nicky spends all day in the clothes that Nile chooses for him. He dreads going out because every eye seems drawn to him. After a millenium of trying to pass unnoticed, first amid Yusuf's people, then in the greater world as his old life faded into the chronicles, Nicky draws the eyes of others like nectar draws insects. The modern world is full of women and men who are not content to admire him. They push into his space, touch him with greedy hands and take his repeated refusals as a challenge. 

Modern courtship seems to consist purely of laying a claim so loudly that no-one argues. Nicky has exhausted himself trying to evade his more persistent suitors and even those who see Joe and him together treat Nicky's beloved as irrelevant. Nicky has bitten back his temper in the face of Joe's bottomless amusement. The crowded clubs make it impossible to escape unwanted touches. Nicky starts to feel physically ill at the sound of music heard through too-large speakers.

Half a hundred times, Nicky turns to Joe to tell him that he does not want to go but then Joe will smile at him.

"See the handsome man I married," he tells a girl who had followed Nicky from the bar and left welts on his arm where her long nails dug in.

Nicky sets down their drinks and spends the next hour listening to Joe talk to this girl while she eyes Nicky like a hunter eyeing a hind. He scrubs his skin red in the shower that night and again, Joe is asleep before him. Nicky's courage fails him when he wakes and he does not speak to Joe in the morning either.

The next time is in Barcelona. Nicky is sitting on their bed as Nile and Joe go through five centuries worth of jewelry to choose what to wear on that night's excursion.

"At last," Joe tells Nile, "at last he is handsome enough to wear these treasures!"

Nile says something, Nicky does not hear the words but the tone is amused. He is too busy staring at his hands, blood pounding in his ears. He manages a smile when Joe selects some glittering thing that pulls at his ear whenever he turns his head. The club they go to that night is dark and loud. Nicky's head aches and he tastes smoke in the back of his throat for hours afterwards. He spends half an hour washing the sour residue of the night before off and emerges to find Andy in the kitchen, alight with purpose.

Nicky could kiss Copley for calling them. The mission is nothing remarkable but it means they have to travel fast and inconspicuous. Nicky's new clothes go into a suitcase and he pulls on his own clothes with a silent sigh of relief. The job is almost routine but it leaves Nile somber and Joe anxious to cheer her up. So Nicky allows them to buy him another new wardrobe.

He does not recognize himself in the mirror but maybe that is a good thing? Joe is still talking about how handsome he looks. Nicky lets it pass until they are in Rome again and Andy agrees to come out with them for a change. Dinner rather than just drinks. Nile talks about the clubs with endless enthusiasm. Nicky's heart sinks. He doesn't manage to catch Joe alone before they join the others but the restaurant is a modest walk away. He has time to think of an excuse.

Joe is joking with Nile about the inferiority of Roman pizza as Nicky locks their door behind them. Andy is smirking but taking no part in what is essentially a monologue. Joe has firm opinions on food and Nicky smiles fondly at him. He is responsible for most of Joe's opinions on Italian food and he thinks sometimes that his mother must be proud of him. He lights a candle to her every time he finds himself in a church. Joe wraps an arm around Nicky's waist without missing a beat. Nile is giggling and even Andy is chuckling as Joe continues to argue with ...well, with himself.

The streets are full of people, going home or going out. Some tourists trailing around with their phones in one hand and cheap maps in the other. There are some people already rendered themselves drunk for the night ahead and they are loud and uninhibited. Gaggles of people clutter the paths. Nicky draws a lot of attention despite his best efforts to tuck in against Joe's side. One young man follows them across the street to demand Nicky's phone number. Joe just laughs when Nicky flounders.

"I cannot fault his taste," Joe says and Nicky tries to smile.

Andy is looking at him as he picks at the strap of the watch he is wearing but Nicky can't read her expression behind her sunglasses. Nile holds her hand for Joe to high five and laughs. Nicky ducks his head and chews on his lip. He isn't hungry anymore but the restaurant is one of their favourites. They've been coming here for four generations and the current head cook (because she is a cook and not a chef! She cooks! She does not just give orders to those who cook! Unlike the French wastrel who she had married nearly six decades past!) is a kind lady.

He doesn't hear what Signora Brambilla says as they take their seats and she hands out the menus but he does hear Joe's response.

"Finally, I can take him out in public!"

Nile laughs. Nicky drops his menu. He genuinely thinks that he is going to be sick. Andy slaps a hand down on the table. "Joe! What the fuck!"

Nile's laughter cuts off and Joe turns to look at her. "Boss?"

Andy's chair squeals on the flagstones as she pushes it back. "Nicky. With me."

Nicky shoves away from the table, staring at the floor even as it blurs. Andy's hand on his arm keeps him from just bolting and he follows her because he absolutely cannot cry in front of Nile. She gets him to a quiet alley before she pulls him into a hug. Nicky doesn't realize he's shaking until she rubs a hand down his back.

"I have you," Andy says softly.

Nicky has to breathe shakily for a minute to keep the tears from spilling over. He breaks the embrace to rub at his eyes. He doesn't trust his voice. Andy tips his chin up to look him in the eye.

"Oh, Nicky," she takes him in her arms again. "I'm sorry."

"Is nothing," Nicky insists. "I am overreacting. I should apolog-"

"You should do no such thing," Andy says firmly. "Except tell them that you don't like modern fashion."

"It makes Nile happy," Nicky says gruffly, "and it makes Joe happy to be seen with me like this."

Andy's eyebrows rise sharply. "You think Joe likes people fawning all over you?"

"He says..." Nicky makes an inarticulate gesture. "Well, you heard."

"You're an idiot," Andy says flatly and Nicky flinches. Andy’s grip tightens on his shoulder. She wasn't talking to him. 

" _Habibi_ ," Joe's voice makes him wince again but his heart is already there, gentle hands cupping Nicky's cheeks. "Oh, my poor love."

Nicky tries to smile but Joe makes a wounded sound and kisses him. Andy shakes her head at them. Nicky tries to explain but Joe keeps kissing him. He draws away only long enough to murmur apologies against Nicky's lips.

"I am well," Nicky manages.

"You are not," Joe says firmly. "I should have seen you were uncomfortable, my love. I am sorry."

"I didn't mind," Nicky insists. "It made Nile happy. You preferred me-"

"I prefer you in my arms," Joe interrupts. "I prefer you with no clothes at all, my darling. What you wear does not concern me. I loved you in your rusting chainmail and foul linen. I love you. Not your wardrobe. It was a kind thing to let Nile dress you but she would not want you hurt by her choices, habibi."

"I don't-" Nicky doesn't even know what he's protesting.

"Five hundred says that she will burn your new clothes herself when she hears how you have been hurt by them," Joe says.

"Six hundred on her just making them disappear," Andy says. "We should get back to her."

"You go back to her," Joe says without looking away from Nicky. "We are going back to the house."

"Joe?"

"It seems that I need to remind my husband how very much I love him," Joe says, eyes dark with intent. "And that he is mine. Clearly, I must prove that I prefer him with no clothing at all."

Nicky trips over his tongue and Andy's laughter is fond. "I'll make your excuses."

Joe spares her a brief smile as he tugs Nicky out of the alley. A drunken girl whistles at Nicky as they pass and Joe tugs him closer, sliding his hand into the too-small rear pocket. He smirks at the girl as Nicky hides his burning cheeks against his beloved's chest. Joe chuckles.

"I am glad you do not like these clothes, my love," he tells Nicky. "I believe I am going to rip them all."

Nicky laughs and tilts his head to catch Joe's unrepentant smile. "I would like that.”


End file.
